Crack Cocaine

What is crack cocaine?

Crack cocaine is a highly addictive and powerful stimulant that is derived from powdered cocaine using a simple conversion process. Crack emerged as a drug of abuse in the mid-1980s. It is abused because it produces an immediate high and because it is easy and inexpensive to produce--rendering it readily available and affordable.

How is crack cocaine produced?

Crack is produced by dissolving powdered cocaine in a mixture of water and ammonia or sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). The mixture is boiled until a solid substance forms. The solid is removed from the liquid, dried, and then broken into the chunks (rocks) that are sold as crack cocaine.

What does crack cocaine look like?

Crack typically is available as rocks. Crack rocks are white (or off-white) and vary in size and shape. How is crack cocaine abused? Crack is nearly always smoked. Smoking crack cocaine delivers large quantities of the drug to the lungs, producing an immediate and intense euphoric effect.

Who uses crack cocaine?

Individuals of all ages use crack cocaine--data reported in the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse indicate that an estimated 6,222,000 U.S. residents aged 12 and older used crack at least once in their lifetime. The survey also revealed that hundreds of thousands of teenagers and young adults use crack cocaine--150,000 individuals aged 12 to 17 and 1,003,000 individuals aged 18 to 25 used the drug at least once.

Crack cocaine use among high school students is a particular problem. Nearly 4 percent of high school seniors in the United States used the drug at least once in their lifetime, and more than 1 percent used the drug in the past month, according to the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future Survey.

What are the risks of using crack cocaine?

Cocaine, in any form, is a powerfully addictive drug, and addiction seems to develop more quickly when the drug is smoked--as crack is--than snorted--as powdered cocaine typically is. In addition to the usual risks associated with cocaine use (constricted blood vessels; increased temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure; and risk of cardiac arrest and seizure), crack users may experience acute respiratory problems, including coughing, shortness of breath, and lung trauma and bleeding. Crack cocaine smoking also can cause aggressive and paranoid behavior.

Street Terms for Crack Cocaine

24-7

Badrock

Beat

Candy

Chemical

Cloud

Cookies

Crumbs

Crunch & munch Devil drug

Dice

Electric kool-aid

Fat bags

French fries

Glo

Gravel

Grit

Hail Hard ball

Hard rock

Hotcakes

Ice cube

Jelly beans

Nuggets

Paste

Piece

Prime time Product

Raw

Rock(s)

Scrabble

Sleet

Snow coke

Tornado

Troop

Is crack cocaine illegal?

Yes, crack cocaine is illegal. Crack cocaine is a Schedule II substance under the Controlled Substances Act. Schedule II drugs such as PCP and methamphetamine have a high potential for abuse. Abuse of these drugs may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence.

Crack Cocaine Facts:

Crack can be purchased in small amounts enough for two uses for an average of $5 to $10.

Crack delivers a similar "high" to powdered cocaine but, because smoking is a more efficient method of getting the chemical to the brain, its effect is quicker and stronger, peaking for about two minutes and lasting about 10 minutes. Users feel alive, exhilarated, confident and wide awake. They have a feeling of clarity and lots of ideas. Pain, tiredness and hunger are blotted out.

Crack is sold in small plastic vials in the form of small white, gray or beige rough chunks that can be smoked in a marijuana or tobacco cigarette, or in a pipe stem often made of glass.

Crack, which may be as much as 90 percent pure, is five to six times stronger than the cocaine normally purchased on the street.

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Cocaine Facts

One cocaine effect, appetite suppression, is very popular for people looking to lose weight or maintain a low weight. Fashion models have been known to use cocaine in order to stay thin. Cocaine users often go days without eating and if this behavior is continued it can lead to addiction. Increased heart rate, blood pressure, constricted blood vessels, dilated pupils, and increased temperature are all short-term physiological cocaine effects. When taken in large quantities, cocaine will intensify the user's high and may cause violent and erratic behavior on the part of the user.

One frequently used cocaine abuse treatment method is cognitive behavioral and relapse prevention. Patients are taught new ways of acting and thinking that will help them stay off drugs. For example, patients in cocaine treatment are urged to avoid situations that lead to drug abuse and to practice drug refusal skills. They are taught to think of a relapse as a slip rather than as a failure. Cognitive behavioral and relapse prevention has proven to be an useful and lasting therapy in cocaine abuse treatment. In the end, the success rate of these various programs is a difficult thing to measure. Outcome studies seem to indicate an individual’s success will be determined primarily by their willingness to incorporate new concepts and ideas into their lives and change how they handle life’s many stressors.

One neural system that appears to be most affected by cocaine abuse originates in a region, located deep within the brain, called the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Nerve cells originating in the VTA extend to the region of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens, one of the brain's key pleasure centers. In studies using animals, all types of pleasurable stimuli, such as food, water, sex, and many drugs of abuse, cause increased activity in the nucleus accumbens.

Other problems associated with cocaine use can include damage to the lungs and nerve system, as well as the human immune system. Pregnant women who use even small doses of cocaine restrict blood flow to the fetus and may give birth to babies with low birth weight, small heads, deformed kidneys and defective urinary tracts. Addicted babies suffer withdrawal pains and demonstrate learning and psychological difficulties as they grow older.

Over 33 million Americans, 12-years-old and over have tried the substance once in their lifetime. Half a million people use this drug every week. The drug is highly addictive and adults of 18 to 25 years use the drug more frequently than any other age group.

Over six million people in the USA chose to purchase and use the illegal drug cocaine. The drug can be sniffed, snorted, injected or smoked, but no matter how it is taken, either in powder form or crack cocaine in a pipe, cocaine is popular because it produces an intense euphoric feeling. They feel energized, but little do users know how powerfully addictive this drug is, nor do they understand or even comprehend its negative side effects.

People experiencing cocaine withdrawal often attempt to self-medicate with alcohol, sedatives, hypnotics, or anti-anxiety agents such as diazepam (Valium). Self medicating or replacing cocaine use with a different drug, even if it is prescribed by a doctor, can be very dangerous. Cocaine addicts who substitute a different drug in place of using cocaine are only transferring their addiction. A complete recovery from cocaine addiction requires learning how to live day to day life without the crutch of drugs and alcohol.

People who try cocaine often get hooked to the short-term cocaine effects, namely feeling as though they have increased energy. The quick high keeps users feeling energetic and able to endure longer in physical activities. New cocaine users often try cocaine to increase productivity at work and in other areas of their lives so that they can work longer and harder. While these results may seem promising in the beginning, increased tolerance and dangerous life choices often follow repeated cocaine use.